The Age of War
by BearRider
Summary: After the defeat of Orochimaru and Akatsuki, Naruto's dream is finally fulfilled. It's all smooth sailing after that, right? The start of the Fourth Great Shinobi War changes things. [NaruOC]


_'Maybe Shikamaru has it right, this is quite troublesome...'_ Mused Uzumaki Naruto, as he and his comrades sped across the rough terrain of Fire Country. It had all started when a half-dead courier from Suna had arrived in Konoha, requesting aid to repel a large attack force unleashed by Orochimaru on Konoha's ally. The Suna-nin had promptly collapsed after that, but he had successfully completed his job. The Godaime Hokage had hastily assembled a sizable team of jounin and physically gifted chunin capable of making the long trek as quickly as possible, to reinforce Suna as quickly as possible. Naruto was put in charge of this group.

Knowing that time was of the essence, the team from Konoha set a record speed through the forests of Fire Country and deserts of Wind Country in order to reach their destination while the battle was still going on. The sight they arrived to was like a scene out of hell itself. Similar to the invasion of Konoha five years prior, Oto was not seeking to occupy, but to annihilate. Unlike Konoha, which usually has two or three people capable of fighting a high level summons in the village at any given time, Suna only had Gaara. Because of this, a large group of summoned snakes had rampaged through the village unhindered, causing destruction and death wherever they went. Add to that the rampant destruction caused by the attacking shinobi. Needless to say, the village was in bad shape. Naruto was about to give the order to engage, when Hyuuga Neji reported something with his Byakugan that made everyone's blood run cold:

Akatsuki was here.

It wasn't just a standard two member team either. In fact, judging from the amount of familiar red-cloaks spotted in the battle, it was safe to say that the entire organization was present. None of the Leaf-nin knew for sure why the criminal organization was here, but Naruto had a hunch that it had something to do with Gaara, as the young Kazekage had once admitted that even with his bijuu extracted, he could still occasionally hear the muffled voice of Shukaku. Perhaps the resurrection jutsu used by Chiyo had forced a bit of the demon's soul back into its container? Nevertheless, the reason Akatsuki was in this battle wasn't important.

It soon became apparent, much to the relief of all present, that Akatsuki was not working alongside the Oto nin. Far from it in fact, as the two groups were fighting amongst themselves. Although the plan was initially for the relieving force to charge in and assist the Suna shinobi in anyway possible, it was quickly agreed on that observing for a few minutes was the best course of action, in order to let the two rival factions fight it out against each other. Although Naruto was somewhat reluctant to standby and watch an ally being decimated, he had matured much in the last two years since his return from a training trip with Jiraiya, so he easily saw the wisdom in patience.

With the help of the Hyuuga's Byakugan, they were able to get a fairly clear picture of the battle without being detected, and a plan was quickly drafted. The majority of the Suna-nin were holed up in the village center, protecting the safe areas where the civilians were located at. That was the destination for most of the relieving force. None of the snakes were Manda, so Naruto assured the group that Gamabunta would be sufficient to deal with that threat. As for Naruto himself...

He was going hunting.

Once the attack started he summoned the boss toad. Seeing the situation at hand, Gamabunta thankfully decided to keep most of his complaints to himself as he we after the nearest snake. With that out of the way, Naruto ran off in search of the strongest chakra signatures that he could find. If he could cut off the head of the beasts that plagued Konoha, than hopefully they would die. He eventually found what he was looking for. Keeping a low profile, he managed to get a front-row seat of the kage level battle that was occurring. On one side, was a man that Naruto had never seen before, although Naruto was pretty certain that he was the leader of Akatsuki based on the raw power he seemed to possess. On the other side was Naruto's. biggest failure. Opposing the Akatsuki leader was the Sharingan-clad Orochimaru. That sight caused the leaf-jounin to grind his teeth in rage, thinking back to how close they came to rescuing Sasuke, only to fail at the very end as Orochimaru's right hand-man, Yakushi Kabuto, sacrificed his life to buy Orochimaru just enough time to transfer his soul into the Uchiha. The failure of that mission led to Naruto pushing himself beyond human limits in order to improve himself, just so he wouldn't have to see another friend suffer the same fate.

Clearing his mind while making a mental promise to stop Orochimaru's defilement of his friend's body once and for all, Naruto created a small batch of Kage Bunshins to prevent outside interference before settling in to watch the battle between the leaders of Konoha's two primary enemies. Caught in the heat of battle as they were, neither noticed his presence. The battle raged on for a good half hour before Orochimaru started to overpower the Akatsuki leader. Many years of research coupled with his acquisition of the Sharingan had allowed Orochimaru, formally the weakest member of Akatsuki, to surpass them all. Seeing defeat at hand, the Akatsuki leader decided that it was a good time to flee. Unfortunately for him, however, the Snake Sannin ensnared him with the snakes that he was named after. The Leader of Akatsuki attempted to get the snakes off him, but Orochimaru was to quick. With a single thrust from his Kusanagi, the feared leader of Akatsuki fell to the ground and quickly died as the blades poison went to work.

With his victory complete, Orochimaru slumped to the ground, deactivating his chakra draining Sharingan. If he had been more alert at the moment, he may have noticed the large gathering of chakra from behind a nearby sand dune. Instead, he was to busy savoring his victory over his former boss. There was no doubt in his mind that he was the strongest being alive in existence and nobody could stop him from achieving true immortality now. This proved to be rather costly as he didn't react to the oncoming attack till it was nearly upon him.

No matter how skillful someone is, heavy injuries and exhaustion can hinder his or her speed and reaction ability a lot. This proved to be the case for the Orochimaru when he found his body sluggish and unresponsive as he attempted to dodge the Fuuton Rasengan Shuriken attack from the charging blond.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

Naruto blinked a few times, stunned that it had been so easy. Perhaps it was a bit naive, but he had always assumed the final battle would be slightly more...climactic. Sure, his strength had grown quite a lot over the past few years, allowing him to constantly edge past Jiraiya or Tsunade in their spars, (although he had no idea how he would fare against them in their prime) but this was more than he was expecting: The most dangerous criminal in the world falling to the leader of Konoha's arch-enemy, only for he himself to fall victim to a single attack from a rather mediocre ambush.

Still, Naruto wasn't one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

With his mission complete, Naruto turned back to Suna in an attempt to reinforce his friends. He was pretty sure they would be alright, as time and time again they found themselves facing Akatsuki and Oto in the past, and nearly every time they had emerged victorious. All of the so-called 'Rookie Nine' along with Gai's team were jounin of the highest quality. Add to that the impeccable teamwork shown by each individual team and they were a force to be reckoned with. Still, even with the losses of most of the original nine to constant skirmishes with Konoha, Akatsuki had a steady supply of nuke-nin to reinforce themselves with and even if those were of a lesser quality, they were still threats to be reckoned with.

The trek through the desert was surprisingly uneventful for the jinchuuriki, considering the lack of any real cover provided on the trip. He was stopped once by a lone Oto jounin, and another time he was attacked by a team of chunin. If it had been any other village, the encounters may have proven to be somewhat difficult, but Oto relied on quantity over quality. As he got closer to the main battle, Naruto was clearly able to see events as they were happening. The battle was quickly shaping into a disaster for the Hidden Village of Sound, as they found themselves caught between the entrenched defenders of Suna and the overpowering skill of Akatsuki. Add to that the group of powerful Leaf-nin that had punched a hole through their lines in order to reinforce Suna, alongside the complete breakdown of their chain of command, and it was not surprising that some of the Oto shinobi were starting to flee. A large chunk of them, including those with cursed seals were still fighting on, but without the superior numbers that they had started with, they had little shot at victory.

It was Akatsuki that was proving to be most troublesome. Numerically, they were the smallest faction in the battle by far, but they had managed to circumvent that problem by avoiding places where the enemies were in high concentration and instead hitting the foe where they were weakest. Still, while they were the most skilled shinobi on the field, they were starting to near their physical limits, as already a few had fallen, while the rest were probably running low on chakra. Add to the fact that their supposed target was a Kage level shinobi, guarded by a small host of Suna shinobi who would rather die than let their Kazekage get captured by Akatsuki again, and victory wasn't looking to good for the criminals.

It was in Akatsuki that Naruto found his only real battle, as about half a kilometer away from Suna, he found one of the cloaked criminals waiting for him. For the second time that day, he found himself facing off against a Sharingan user as the one before him was none other than Uchiha Itachi. Naruto cursed under his breath. Itachi was the last of the original Akatsuki and with the leader gone, he was by far the most dangerous. Although Naruto had never fought the elder Uchiha before, (he didn't consider the thirty-percent copy he faced when trying to retrieve Gaara) he knew this fight could go either way. The Uchiha looked relatively unharmed, but the slight sagging of the shoulders hinted that he was already somewhat tired from his previous fights. Still, Naruto knew that he would be no pushover. However, there was something he needed to know first. To find his answer, he opened a mental connection to his inner demon.

"**I see you are facing the last of the Sharingan wielders. What do you want, gaki?" **Naruto was not surprised by this comment, as the Kyuubi seemed to know a lot about the Sharingan, although Naruto had never attempted to find out why.

"I just need to know one thing. Are you capable of breaking the Tsukuyomiif I get captured in it?" Although Naruto hated asking the fox for anything, he knew that sometimes it is best to swallow his pride and ask for help. Although the two still held a deep dislike for each other, they relied on each other for survival, so it was not uncommon for them to work together when needed. Over the years a slight feeling of mutual respect had grown, although the two would vehemently deny it.

"**Hmm..."** The fox seemed to muse the idea for a minute before finally responding, "**That illusion is most impressive, but I do believe I can counter it as long as you refrain from drawing upon my chakra beforehand." **Naruto found that answer to be satisfactory, and cut the connection, before turning back to the Uchiha. One of the advantages of talking to Kyuubi is that time flows much slower, as only a few seconds had passed in the real world while the two had conversed.

"Uchiha Itachi... there is no point in us fighting. Your leader is dead and Akatsuki won't survive this battle." Aside from a slight raising of an eyebrow at news that the leader was dead, Itachi showed no visible emotion.

"That may be so," here he shrugged slightly, "but that is not something I care about. I only joined so that I could find someone with power, so I could eventually test myself against them. Unlike so many others, you are not a disappointment." Here Itachi gave a shark-like grin slightly reminiscent of his recently deceased partner, Kisame.

Seeing that Itachi wasn't going to back down, (not that Naruto had expected it) Naruto settled into a combat stance while mentally analyzing the upcoming fight. Between common knowledge listed in the Bingo Book along with knowledge of the nuke-nins younger brother, Naruto was able to form a fairly accurate profile of his foe. _'Itachi is probably faster than me. Strength wise we are about even. Add in the Sharingan, and a prolonged taijutsu battle is out of the question.' _Naruto frowned lightly at that revelation, but quickly refocused,_'He probably knows some powerful genjutsu, but the only one that I can't handle is the Tsukuyomi, and Kyuubi assured me that he can handle it.' _Ironically, genjutsu disruption had been one of Naruto's prime weaknesses in the past, seeing as how its nearly impossible for him to cut off his massive chakra flow. Thankfully, Kakashi had come up with the theory that for someone like Naruto, it would be possible to overpower the genjutsu by unleashing a large burst of chakra. _'Of course with his Sharingan genjutsu would be useless against him, not that I know many. I guess that leaves ninjutsu. He probably knows way more jutsu than me, but I should be able to win in a battle of attrition, especially with him worn down like he is...'_

With a plan in hand, Naruto quickly formed the seals for his favorite ninjutsu technique Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, forming three solid clones. The three clones charged the former ANBU-captain. It wasn't the reckless charge that he was known for as a kid, but a more disciplined and effective assault. Still, mere Kage Bunshin are no match for an S-rank nuke-nin, as Itachi showed quite clearly by quickly launching a fistful of shuriken to slow down the attack, before going into a rapid series of hand seals. Not surprisingly, the Uchiha's attack was a fire elemental attack, more specifically the Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu. Like most jutsu, the power of the attack is directly related to the amount of chakra used. Thus, even a simple jutsu like Goukakyuu is capable of destruction on a large scale, as two of the Kage Bunshins found out, with the third just narrowly escaping the blast.

With the smoke from the attack obscuring Naruto's vision, the jinchuuriki was forced to wait tensely. When it cleared, Naruto spotted the Uchiha in the same place he was before launching his attack. Still, something didn't seem right... A vibration from the ground confirmed his suspicion, as he was forced to leap away as the Akatsuki member emerged from the ground in the spot that Naruto had previously occupied. _'He must have formed some kind of a Bunshin to hold my attention while he went underground.' _Naruto surmised, as he glanced to where the Bunshin should be. He noted with some horror that the clone was nowheres to be seen, but he didn't have a chance to search for it as Itachi launched a vigorous melee assault on the blonde wielding a kunai. Naruto sidestepped the attack while drawing a kunai of his own. As Naruto had predicted, the Uchiha was far superior in a taijutsu battle. When he was finally able to disengage from the fight, he was sporting a shallow cut on the face along with a gash that had penetrated his jounin vest, but thankfully failed to go beyond that. Itachi, on the other hand, was still unscathed.

It was than that a spike in chakra from behind Naruto alerted him to his mistake._'The Bunshin! Shit!'_ Judging by the large spike in chakra, it was apparent that Itachi was going to use the Bunshin Daibakuha jutsu to detonate the clone. Naruto knew there was no way he could escape from the blast radius in time. Naruto quickly looked for a way out of the situation, but the desert lacked any good objects to use for Kawarimi. It was then that he remembered his own Kage Bunshin, and used Kawarimi on the clone, just as Itachi's clone exploded. Although he was able to escape from the primary blast, Naruto did not emerge from the attack unscathed, as the blast had scorched him before he got away.

Showing the fruits of his years of experience, Itachi didn't allow himself a moment to pause, instead opting to form another jutsu. This went on for a few minutes, with Itachi launching attack after attack, while Naruto struggled to avoid each attack. It was when Naruto stumbled slightly while avoiding a particularly dangerous Raiton jutsu that Itachi finally unveiled his Mangekyou Sharingan. Naruto saw the action, but was unable to avert his eyes in time. _'I hope the fox was right...'_ thought Naruto, as the world turned black and he found himself tied to a cross.

Itachi smirked. "You fought well, but this battle is over. For the next forty-eight hours, I shall use you as a shuriken target." The Uchiha proclaimed as he pulled out a small handful of shuriken. With expert ease, he deftly launched them at the incapacitated blond. Instinctively, Naruto shut his eyes while waiting for the stinging sensation of metal cutting into his skin.

It never did.

Naruto opened his eyes to find that the fox had held true to his word. The supposedly unbreakable Tsukuyomi was fading away as quickly as it had appeared. Suddenly free from his bindings, Naruto turned to his foe, only to see the Uchiha breathing heavily, while showing actual emotion on his face: Shock and Confusion. The Uchiha easily schooled his emotions after only a brief second, before turning to Naruto with a faint gleam of happiness in his eye.

"So thats why you were holding off on using the Kyuubi's chakra. Most impressive. I do have one final ace up my sleeve that you must deal with, before you can be declared the victor. Ameratsu!" A burst of black fire shot from the Uchiha. Naruto, still a bit unbalanced from the genjutsu, knew he would be unable to dodge. Instead, he released chakra into his palm, before rapidly rotating it. In order to increase the effectiveness of his Rasengan, Naruto drew forth the remainder of the Kyuubi's chakra and added that to the spinning ball of death.

The two attacks collided. Black fire battled the demonic hurricane for superiority. Naruto grit his teeth as he fought to maintain control of his jutsu against such a powerful attack.

Finally, the Oodama Rasengan prevailed over the Ameratsu.

Itachi, as exhausted as he was after using his strongest attack, didn't even make a move to dodge as Naruto closed the distance between the two, before finally slamming his jutsu into the nuke-nin's stomach. Itachi collapsed to the ground, quickly bleeding to death from the gaping hole in his chest. As death claimed the last of the Uchiha, Itachi grinned. He had finally found someone to test his full power against.

It was then that Naruto heard a most peculiar sound; the sound of silence. This meant that the battle was over. Although Naruto was still to far from the primary battle to know what exactly happened, he had no worries. His unshakable faith in his friends made him positive that he was on the winning side. Still, Naruto decided to make haste back to Sunagakure, in the off chance that one of his comrades was actually hurt.

As he made his way through the carnage, Naruto noted with a vicious smirk the large ratio of dead Oto shinobi compared to the fallen soldiers of Suna. He grimaced, however, as he also saw a lot of civilian corpses strewn throughout, a sign of the barbarity of Orochimaru's minions. Scattered throughout the battle were corpses adorned in the familiar red cape of Akatsuki. The rarest corpse, Naruto noted happily, was that of his fellow Leaf-nin. Although it was a bit disheartening to see any of the men that he commanded lying lifelessly on the battlefield, Naruto was glad that none of the faces matched those of any of his closest friends. A quick scan showed that no wounded remained, hinting that they had already been delivered to makeshift hospitals. _'Sakura will have her work cut out for her.' _He thought grimly. Although the quality of Suna's medical program had risen over the years, (a side effect of being allied to the legendary healer Tsunade) it still paled in comparison to that of Konohas.

Almost as bad, however, was the sheer devastation delivered onto the ninja village. Entire streets were reduced to rubble. It was a small miracle that Oto relied mostly on sound based jutsu, instead of a more destructive element, like fire or earth. Even though Naruto knew that the toad boss Gamabunta did all he could to keep collateral damage to a minimum, he spotted a few flooded houses in the village outskirts, hinting at some collateral damage from the toad's water attack. All in all, Naruto seriously doubted that Suna would be a prominent figure on the global stage for at least a decade while they rebuilt and repopulated.

Naruto finally found the victorious Suna and Leaf shinobi outside the mostly undamaged Kazekage's tower. A few nodded respectfully at the blond as he passed, while others merely gave tired smiles, which he returned. He made his way over to what he assumed was the gathering of leaders, as the Kazekage, his siblings, Neji, Shikamaru, and a few other Suna jounin were present.

"Uzumaki Naruto." Softly greeted Gaara, causing everyone to turn to Naruto. Although the extraction of Shukaku finally allowed him to sleep, Gaara was still not the most sociable of people. Still, everyone present knew of the bond of friendship the two jinchuuriki shared.

"Hey Gaara, everybody." Naruto replied as he joined into the small circle of people. "How did we fare?"

"Well.. we won." Shikamaru muttered dryly. "Casualties are less than we had expected, especially once you add in the intervention of Akatsuki. Theres a lot of severely wounded, though. Sakura and the other trained medic-nin are working on them. The important question, though, is how did your mission go?" Apparently the Suna shinobi had been told of his assassination mission, as all eyes turned to him with mixed expressions of curiosity and anticipation.

Naruto grinned as he answered, "The bastards were fighting each other when I arrived, so I just waited till the battle was over before joining in. Hebi-teme and the leader of Akatsuki are both dead!" He exclaimed proudly. Apparently he said the last part quite loudly as a ragged cheer went up from the survivors. Without Orochimaru, the surviving Oto shinobi were little more than a ragged band of nuke-nin. "Oh right," Naruto muttered, "I also encountered Uchiha Itachi in the battle. We no longer have to worry about him."

"Alongside those defeated in the village, that accounts for the entire Akatsuki organization." Temari added in, causing everyone to grin. It had been a long war, but it was finally over.

**000000000000000000000000000000000**

The group from Konoha spent about a week in Suna helping to clean up the mess left in the aftermath of the invasion. Eventually however, they decided that the wisest course of action would be to return to Konoha, promising that supplies and proper aid would be sent to help with the rebuilding effort. The return trip was quite a bit longer, as they weren't in nearly as big a rush to return, not to mention the fact that a number of the group were wounded. Still, they made it back to their village without incident. Being in charge of the mission it was Naruto's responsibility to give the report to the Hokage. Tsunade listened thoughtfully as Naruto gave his report.

"So... your telling me that Orochimaru and Akatsuki have been wiped out?" Seeing his nod of confirmation, Tsunade attempted to keep a straight face, as any cool dignified Kage should, but she couldn't help but let a small smirk appear. _'Finally! With some peace around here I can finally quit this god awful job. Had I known Shizune wouldn't allow me to drink heavily while working I never would have become Hokage in the first place! I can finally get plastered!!'_ The Godaime let out a small giggle at that thought, which creeped Naruto out to no end. Realizing what she had done, Tsunade gave a small cough in an attempt to regain composure. "I see..." she started, "this is great news for Konoha." _'And me!' _she mentally cheered. "I think that will be all. I have to go give a report to the council about this along with other...related matters. So you are dismissed, but I want you back here tonight...tomorrow!!!" She quickly changed that last part as she decided that getting drunk with her already retired teammate was more important than her Kage duties.

After that rather odd debriefing Naruto exited the Hokage's tower and made his way back to his apartment. Along the way he noticed a few people smile and nod at him as he passed. No matter how many times it happened it would always brighten Naruto's mood. He finally had gained respect from the village of his birth. It had not happened easily, but that just made it all the more worthwhile. The first shift in public opinion had happened in the chunin exams and its aftermath, five years prior. Everyone who remembered the Kyuubi knew of the origin of the powerful chakra that the genin unleashed to defeat Hyuuga Neji, so it had shocked the world when the jinchuuriki didn't brutally murder the Hyuuga, instead sparing and helping the confused boy. That caused many to ponder the fact that maybe Naruto did indeed control the Kyuubi, and not the other way around. During the invasion right after, it was rumored that Naruto had fought and defeated Sabaku no Gaara in defense of the village, a fact that became really impressive once Gaara was named Kazekage.

After returning from his trip with Jiraiya things gotten even better for the blond. Almost every mission ended up with him fighting foes dangerous enough to threaten the well-being of Konoha's populace, yet Naruto emerged victorious more often than not. Each victory added to his reputation. Eventually it just got to the point where people decided that he had done more than enough to justify their respect, despite some hesitation. It also helped that he was close friends with members of some of Konoha's most prestigious clans. A few hard-liners still resented Naruto, but they were becoming rarer each day.

**000000000000000000000000000000000**

A five man team of masked shinobi, bearing the hitai-ate of Kumo, stealthily made their way into the former lair of Akatsuki, located in a cave in north-east Fire Country. The village had known the location of Akatsuki for a while, but other than the kidnapping of their own jinchuuriki, Yugito, the presence of Akatsuki was tolerated, solely for the fact that it was a massive thorn in the side of Konoha. A message from one of their spies, however, claimed that the powerful organization had been destroyed. Because of this, the Raikage had dispatched an ANBU team to investigate the rumors, and if true, to confiscate anything of value before Konoha could locate the base. The investigation eventually led the team to a large statue. The assembled shinobi could feel the raw power radiating out of it, instinctively knowing that this was where the captured bijuu's power was stored.

"Such power!," gasped the apparent leader, in a slightly awed tone of voice, "Raikage-sama will be most interested in this..."

**000000000000000000000000000000000**

"You called, obaachan?" Although Naruto had matured a great deal over the year, he still could not bring himself to drop some of the less than endearing names he had for people. Still, Tsunade didn't mind, as it beat the hell out of constantly being called 'Hokage-sama' or 'Tsunade-sama.'

"Hmph, insolent gaki!" She proclaimed, but with the ghost of a smile on her face. "As you know, the war is finally over. Now that we have peace, a transition of power is much easier. I won't mince words with you, I am old, suffering from gambling withdrawals, and have no real love for this job."

Naruto knew this game well. Tsunade always liked to get his hopes up before shooting him down. Still, he at least had to play along, "So your finally giving me your title, eh?" Here she would usually laugh at him, or in the worst case scenario smack him with one of her chakra-enhanced punches.

Her response was slightly different this time, "The council and I agree that it is time for a Rokudaime. After bouncing around a few names, we eventually decided upon my successor. Uzumaki Naruto, Konoha has requested you to take the title of Rokudaime Hokage of Konohagakure no Sato."

Naruto blinked once. Then he blinked again. It took till after the third blink for his mind to finally comprehend the message. It took another two blinks before he finally gave an answer.

He fainted.

"I guess thats a yes." Mused Tsunade, with a slight shrug of the shoulders.

**000000000000000000000000000000000**

A/N: Yes, I have written a new story. For those few who are fans of my other story, don't worry. I plan on keeping that one going also.

Writing this chapter was really odd for me. My original story plan had this going in a completely opposite direction, but about halfway through this chapter I changed my mind. Because of this, I have little idea what I am currently planning for this thing. If I don't screw it up to badly, it might be kinda fun going blind. I have no idea if the rest of you will like the premise or not, so reviews would be much appreciated. Like I said before though, I definitely won't stop with my other story, but updates will be slower as I split time between the two.

The pairing will eventually be Naruto/OC, but I don't know how soon that will happen.


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